Motor vehicles, as presently manufactured, are equipped with systems for defogging and deicing windshields. Generally, the systems depend upon heat generated in the internal combustion engine and transferred to the engine's cooling system to be blown as warm air across the surface of the windshield facing the interior of the vehicle to accomplish the defogging and deicing thereof. In such a case, of course, it is readily apparent that there is a period of time between the starting of an engine and the time that sufficient heat is being generated in its cooling system in order to provide a defogging and/or deicing of the vehicle's windwhield. Depending upon the exact temperature conditions and the time the vehicle has been sitting idle without its engine running, the period of time before sufficient heat is available to accomplish this function can be up to ten minutes or more.
In view of the fact that there can be a rather lengthy delay before the present day motor vehicle's heating and defrosting system can clear a windshield, automotive designers have been attempting to design systems which generate heat from electrical energy to accomplish a relatively rapid defrost and deicing of a vehicle windshield. Such an electrically heated defrosting and deicing system generally would be independent of the normal heating and defrosting system contained in the motor vehicle.
Such electrically heated windshield have become an option on vehicles sold by Ford Motor Company. These electrically heated windshields (EHW) use electrical energy derived from the electrical system of the vehicle to achieve a relatively rapid defrosting and/or deicing of a vehicle windshield. I have been involved in the manufacture of such windshields for Ford Motor Company at Ford's Niagara Falls Glass Plant located in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
As originally developed, the manufacturing of such windshields led to problems when a pair of windshield forming glass templates were bent to proper configuration. As originally developed, the method was one which resulted in minute chips if glass being sometimes generated as a pair of glass templates were bent to a windshield configuration. When such chips were produced during windshield bending, the pair of glass templates had to be scrapped at great economic loss because much time and expense had already gone into the development of the electrically heated windshield by the time the pair of glass templates are subjected to the bending operation. The method that I have developed is one which eliminates the production of such glass chips during the bending of the glass templates to form the bent windshield configuration.
No search was conducted on the subject matter of this specification in the United States Patent and Trademark Office or in any other search facility. I am unaware of any prior art which is relevant to the subject matter of this specification.